The Burrow

Big Cuter lives a car-less life style.  He cabs, he walks, he takes the subway, he rides the streetcar. He'll ride the bus to visit one friend, but tries to avoid it otherwise.  I'm jealous of all of his options. Zipcars live in the garaged under his building. He carries a card in his wallet, has the site bookmarked on his computer, and with two clicks and a few entries he can be behind the wheel of a Mazda 3 or an Audi A4 or a Honda Civic.  He could rent a van or a pick-up, too.  The vehicles live in named parking spaces: Mary Jane, Ocean Beach.... it's a San Francisco smile every time we discover a vehicle. Today we drove a Ford Focus hybrid out to Marin and back.  There were too many buttons on the dashboard, and nobody could figure out how to unlock the passenger doors.  The turn signal had issues with turning off, and the hybrid recharging system made an interesting rumble under my seat as it gathered power.  But the gas and insurance were inc...

The snapdragons have begun to bloom. Planted in November, they did nothing for months. They were green, leafy stalks, which never drooped and never flowered. They were just there. The same can be said for the amaryllis. The bulb went in before Thanksgiving; the stalk arose last Monday. The wildflowers are erupting, covering the yard with blue and white mini-blossoms. Individually, they aren't that impressive. Collectively, it's a marvel. Publishers Clearing House sent us an entry form, and TBG insisted that I open it and send it in. My luck was sure to win us the big prize, he insisted. Unfortunately for our bank balance, there were offers in the packet. An unkinkable hose is now proudly attached to the bib under the front window, just behind the bougainvilla. They, too, have begun to sprout. There are little red leaves nestled amidst the woody stumps Ernie pruned back. I spent the morning watering, soaking, drowning the containers. The carnations ar...

We made the hand off at Pilates.  My 10am class was ending, and JannyLou's 11am private lesson was beginning.  Mr. T was the prize to be shared.  I found him on the bench in the waiting area, receiving $1.50 in coins and bills from my classmate; for some reason, she decided that it was her obligation to provide him with the funds for a soda from the Subway next door.  No one is exactly sure why she felt the need to pay for his thirst quenching, but she did, and he is now $1.50 richer than he was when he woke up this morning. It doesn't take a lot to put a smile on the face of a nine year old. Leaving JannyLou to open her pectoral musculature, we considered our options.  Nope, he didn't want to walk with the kids at Prince.  Nope, he was too old for a playground.  Nope, I'm not up for hiking.  Nope, he wasn't interested in being my second set of hands and legs as I extended my irrigation system to include the containers in the courtyard. ...

Thank you, Little Cheese, for finding this for us! If you're wondering what it is, read today's post.

I'm sure that this has happened to me before.  I just can't remember when so many plans were foiled before they even began... or when they were just getting underway. Stroll with me through the past few weeks: TBG had water sloshing around in his ear for a whole weekend before he decided that a doctor should look at it.  After an examination, he was given Cipro ear drops. They were supposed to dry up the water and clear up the infection that was beginning to set in.  After eight of the prescribed ten days of use, the ringing in his head was still there.... all day... every day.  He went back to the doctor, who told him that the prescription drops were thickening his ear drum and causing the ringing. He's got a prescription nasal inhalant and the doctor's assurance that flying won't hurt him and that the ringing will go away.  For some reason, we're believing it this time.  It just wasn't the original plan. ***** Big Cuter's Hoyas were stomped by a ...

The good news is, I have more sensation in my leg.  This enables me to find and engage those pesky adductors and abductors and hamstrings and quads as I progress from throwing my leg forward to the beginning imitations of an actual step.  That step ought to include a deeper fold in my hip than I'm capable of right now, and several more degrees of flexion and extension, and space between my ribcage and my iliac crest.... but I fear I am venturing farther into too much information, especially for those of you who are reading this over your morning coffee. The bad news is, I have more sensation in my leg.  This enables me to notice the grating of my arthritic hip bones and reconstructions as the tendons and ligaments and muscles announce their presence with authority. It's a cacophony of clicks and creaks and squeaks.... not all of them from the hip.  I admit to hollering aloud, to groaning, even to the occasional Oh, dear God .  I'm not sure why I thought that t...

Hour after hour of young men in shorts tossing an orange ball through a hoop may not be everyone's idea of heaven, but, for our family, there's no better time of the year.  The boys were on the phone all afternoon, my inbox is full of Reply All  messages cheering and jeering, and I left the CTGMF Spring Training Dodgers v Cubs game at Kino Stadium today at the seventh inning stretch to be home in time for Arizona's first game. I did stay to sing Take Me Out to the Ballgame. ***** There are lots of empty green seats in the arena; apparently, the Gonzaga fans didn't stick around for the second game.  It's basketball's version of all-dressed-up-and-nobody-watching. I have to think that those tickets could have been put to good use, somehow.  There has to be a Boys and Girls Club that would have been delighted to use them for this game. ***** There are four regions in the tournament..  It's odd to think of Harvard playing in the West, but it's just wro...

I have years and years of our family pools, printed out, winners circled, Cinderella teams and final four choices written in handwriting that grew as the kids did.  It's all electronic these days, but TBG and I still print them out and shuffle through them; some things just need to be fondled. I didn't create a pool for The Burrow this year; life got ahead of me, it seems. Personally, between Little Cuter's Hoosiers and Big Cuter's Hoyas and The Bride's Jayhawks and our local Wildcats I've got animals and unknowables aplenty to cheer on to victory.  It's going to be a wonderful few weeks. ***** My friends have been doing interesting things lately.  Liz went to Indian Wells just for the heck of it.  Karina did faux-sky diving in an indoor air-will-hold-you-up place.  Ellen climbed to the top of Wasson Peak on her newly repaired hip.  Somehow, repairing the irrigation system on my raised bed feels awfully tame right now. ***** Book Bub has made me a fre...

Actually, no one could. I made seven phone calls just now.  It took about ten minutes.  It garnered three answering machines and four real, live humans.  It was civic engagement at its most basic level.  It felt great. If only HB 2544 weren't so frightening, I'd be pretty happy with myself right now. Arizona's legislature is, once again, boggling the imagination.  The House has passed this already; I was calling before the hearing in the Senate which takes place as you are reading this essay. Weep along with me as you see what is moving along the path to being enacted: This bill will require ALL police departments in the state to sell to gun dealers, and put back on the street, ANY and ALL GUNS acquired by the departments including those surrendered or voluntarily turned in.  That's right, denizens.  Instead of destroying the guns turned in at Gun Buy Back Days, local jurisdictions will be forced to put those puppies right back out on  the ...

We are a tight knit group, those of us who were there to shake Gabby's hand on January 8, 2011. Contrary to reports floating around on the interwebs, we are not a group of actors who knew one another before that morning.  We didn't stage the event; we were there when it happened to us, unwilling participants in a spark that ignited the current frenzy over sensible gun control legislation.  That is the public piece of it all. The private piece is much more special. We each have a role to play in the on-going drama that is our lives, post getting-shot-on-a-sunny-Saturday-morning.  Some of us talk to the media, some of us organize get-togethers, some of us lobby on Capitol Hill. Each of us acts, in some small way, as a representative of the larger group.  Not everyone has the same set of skills in their toolbag; together we're a fully functioning unit. We are gun owners and gun fearers, parents and grandparents, mothers and fathers and sons and daughters. We've brou...

What's a gardening post without pictures?  I wondered about that myself, as I posted last week.  But, life intervened and the sun had set before I could get home and take the photos I wanted.  Now, after a lovely, warm, breezy, sunny weekend, I have finished upgrading the irrigation, installing plants in the containers, and begun growing veggies for salad delights. My timer was covered in lime.  Even with new batteries, it didn't make a sound.  So, Brother and I bought me a new one and I installed it today. I was glad that I remembered to use the thin white tape to cover the threads as I screwed the pieces into one another.  It's still leaking and the hose bib connector may have to be replaced, but none of the connections are seeping, and that is a good thing. It's hard to dig a trench to bury the lines.  I was struggling and feeling annoyed until I remembered a lesson learned in Master Gardening.  I soaked the ground I wanted to trench a...

How I got caught up in this I'll never really know.  I was struck by a comment, I ruminated, I couldn't find an answer in my own brain, I wrote it up and published it.  I found that my readers had strong opinions, and their answers helped me clarify my confusion.  I'm still not sure that I'm right, bu now I know how my audience feels. I also hurt my friend's feelings. This blogging stuff has lots of points and corners and twists and turns. I seem to have made a wrong one. Little Cuter called me and wondered if my friend was hurt. She saw what others saw  and what I had not considered: I was calling on people to disparage another's parenting.  Though that wasn't my intent, I quickly came to see how it could be construed as such. I really didn't know what to think. Her son, after a long hard week of single-parenthood, offered to make her a margarita. She'd be giving her son the opportunity to make her smile, to present her with something she ...

There was barely a transitional stage.  It snowed within recent memory; the pictures are still cropping up on Tucsonans' Facebook pages.  We awoke after torrential rains to snow capping the mountains this weekend.  It had melted by the time I arrived at the Festival of Books, but the image was burned into my brain.  Elizibeth and I shared the warm clothing I'd brought along; flip flops were out of the question. My polar fleece wasn't too heavy as I crossed the campus to my car.  I rolled down a window, and cranked it right back up once I began to move.  The breeze was frigid, though the sun was out and the trees were barely moving.  That's as wintry as Tucson gets, and I'm glad. TBG turned on the pool's heater and the sun warmed the water as the mechanics did their job but the air temperature hovered near 60.  I was too cold to contemplate donning a swimsuit and taking a dip.  The winter seemed determined to stick around. From Ri...

I spent 45 minutes in the gym this morning.  I did leg curls with 20 pounds on the machine and squats without weights.  I couldn't move the seated leg press machine with my right leg, couldn't move it an inch... until I looked and saw that there was 50 pounds on the weight pin... and then I felt better.... until I remembered that I'd been doing much more than that before.... Before.... I was fast, I was confident, I scurried.  Before.... I didn't have to worry about keeping my planters hydrated while I visited Big Cuter for a long weekend.  Before.... I was symmetrical. It's been a while since I've been so disappointed.  The sun is out, the air is clear, the wildflowers are blooming, and I'm blue.  I have plans to visit with Amster's kids this afternoon, and there's a massage awaiting me later on, too.  My kids are healthy and happy and G'ma is stable and as delightfully confused as ever.  There's no real reason for my heavy heart. The ...

I reread the notes in my Moleskine last night, as I regaled Big Cuter with my day at the Tucson Festival of Books.  He's a fan of Patrick Rothfuss in particular and fantasy in general; I tried to make it real for him.  As I revisited the day in my head, I realized that there were many more pearls of wisdom hidden in the talks and that yesterday's post only scratched the surface. So, today, I bring you The Best of Ashleigh's Notes: ***** "Research is so seductive." "Writing from history is the best: you are given a great story  and you don't have to make anything up." "I have a folder full of Books I Never Wrote." The Loch Ness Theory:  If people are making money off the legend,  they will lie to keep it so. On the main players at the OK Corral: Wyatt Earp had a "deep, cold well of rage, which he kept hidden." "Old Man Clanton was a real son-of-a-bitch." John Grisham's prodigious o...

It was a busy weekend in Tucson.  The Wildcats were playing softball and basketball on campus, even though it's Spring Break and the kids are supposed to be gone.  That's the premise behind scheduling the Festival of Books for this weekend; the campus and the parking garages are supposed to be empty.  It's also supposed to be warm and sunny; it's March in Tucson, after all. The best laid plans, as they say.... the kids and I headed out through sprinkles, wearing sweatshirts and polar fleece, parking much further than my achy hip appreciated.  We were there before the festivities officially started at 10am, which is how we could be up close and personal with the Mad Scientist whose coloring book with the appearing and disappearing pictures gave Messers 7 & 9 the giggles. He was "messing with our minds" and we couldn't decide if that was a good thing, or not. Elizibeth's new phone timed the teen who was saying the colors instead of reading th...